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[Phmcw]

Hmm, no, not really. What we had were half-assed attempt at making an explosive device, mostly done by wackos that read things on the Internet.
Al quaida got kicked hard with everything that the US had in reserve and a bunch other people with them.

Seriously, we live right next to Muslims nations, and terrorism is not even a main concern ; we've got a police force to deal with that, an intelligence service to identify and deter the thread beforehand, and they are one of the thousands things that may kill us out there and that our government must deal with. They are a significantly more minor threat than say pollution, disease, car accident, and probably killed less peoples than bees.

And as far as terrorism goes, I would be more worried about white power organization (they were trying to organize an attentat, foiled, and were responsible for one shooting in Belgium (a low power level action rifle was used because the guy had nothing else available, yay gun control).

If terrorism is a concern, give a couple more buck to the agency supposed to catch them and go on to the next problem.
Hell, 9/11 was anticipated and would have been prevented if not for a problem in the chain of command (probably someone thinking the allies of old weren't that crazy. Turn out they were.)

[Zangi]

Ya know reading through this... and looking back at 9/11...  Bin Laden, Al-Queda... do you think they are winning? 

By hitting the towers, they have given our own government... power over its citizens by way of fear.  To change things for the worse, in the name of good and security.  Continued attempts to bomb other places keeps 9/11, the fear, fresh in the minds of the US citizens and its politicians.

And so, we see the restriction of freedoms in the name of security...  Are they winning?

[Pnx]

Ya know reading through this... and looking back at 9/11...  Bin Laden, Al-Queda... do you think they are winning? 

By hitting the towers, they have given our own government... power over its citizens by way of fear.  To change things for the worse, in the name of good and security.  Continued attempts to bomb other places keeps 9/11, the fear, fresh in the minds of the US citizens and its politicians.

And so, we see the restriction of freedoms in the name of security...  Are they winning?

I'm not really sure what they were trying to accomplish, but possibly yes.

[Dakk]

Assuming a terrorist's goal is to terrorize its enemies, then yes, they have won massively.

[sluissa]

The only thing that's stopped a couple of legit attempts is the insane amount of airport security.

Incorrect. The underwear bomber- who was basically wearing a diaper full of explosives- got through security and was caught on the plane. I'm trying to think of a bad guy who was caught by security, and nothing comes to mind. A casual google search returns no actual threats intercepted by the TSA in a decade of operation. More likely than not, the TSA has had a net negative protective effect due to the few years of life it has collectively taken off anyone scanned. The biggest improvement to security has probably been cabin door locks.

This. The TSA, to anyone's knowledge, except possibly their own. Has not stopped anyone dangerous from getting on a plane. Except possibly a few drug traffickers.

To be honest. Nobody else needs to get on a plane to try to damage us. The damage has already been done. We're bleeding from a few trillion self inflicted paper cuts after a bee stung us and now we've been swatting at mis-identified and non-existent bees ever since. Yes, we've found a couple... just to prove that bees, do in fact, still exist. But all of our swatting never stopped them at all. It was mostly the bee's ineptitude. Which, still, caused more swatting and more papercuts.

The details are debatable... but the overall picture is indisputable.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html


And this is ONLY looking at the money aspect. There were other costs as well. *cough*PATRIOT Act, to name one,*cough* and everything that followed in that same vein.*cough*

[Pnx]

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Thought this was relevant.

[PTTG??]

Ah yes, phobophobia. What really scares me though is phobophobophobia.

[Truean]

This is the only time you will ever see me defend the TSA, as I am quite against them for their numerous civil rights violations:

Really google search: "weapons found by the TSA" or "Weapons seized by the TSA:"
A saudi passenger with a stun gun and four other weapons in his bag
"A Saudi man was busted at JFK Airport after the Transportation Security Administration spotted a stun gun and four other weapons in his checked bag, sources said yesterday.

Mohamed Hefni, 54, was arrested in a first-class lounge at JFK at 4 p.m. Thursday after agents found the contraband in his luggage before he could board his Saudi Airlines flight to Riyadh, authorities said.

TSA Agent Ann Marie McLewd initially spotted the outline of weapons inside a black bag that Hefni had checked -- and a peek inside the luggage by TSA Agent Phillip Desnyo revealed a fully operable battery-powered electric stun gun.

Desnyo also found three “electric stun batons,” an “electric stun pen” and a large can of pepper spray in the bag authorities said."

What do you think he was bringing stun guns and pepper spray on a plane for?

People keep bringing prohibited items on planes, or trying (If even 1/4 of these are legit weapons that's an issue).
Some crazy SoB wanted to bring a grenade on a plan in 2009, even though it was "harmless." If it looks like a grenade on a plane I'm going to assume it is one and active....
Brass knuckles and weapons o my....
Guns and ammo found in carry on
Illegal items in LAX
A guy trying for a gun in his carry on
Agency says hundreds of guns found in checkpoints this year
People still bring prohibited items to the airport and complain about it when the rules are posted....

The issue is that people keep bringing crap on planes that they shouldn't.

That said, the TSA sucks and for the stuff they catch, they miss much more while being a royal pain....
Thus, what would you have them replace it with?

As for terror cases, again, Google search:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terrorist_plots_in_the_post-9/11_United_States
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/us/25zazi.html

As for "how many tried to board planes." I really don't know if that's a question that can be answered. I'm certainly the last one to advocate for a police state, but to claim that there's no real problem, really?

Hell yes, things have gone waaaaay overboard. Don't let the pendulum swing too far back the other way. How about we try for something reasonable instead? Living in a constant police state won't work but neither will pretending nothing is wrong or ever will be.

Bottom Line: I don't know what the answer is or if I'm right, but how do you deal with this stuff in a reasonable fashion?

[Phmcw]

As I said : pretty standard procedure : get intelligence on terrorist group, work closely with the "insert regulatory bodice here" (for instance judge of instruction for the French) make basic checkpoint at the airport (metal detector and luggage scanner, along with a few dogs).

I mean people having weird things in their luggages is common ; my sister once happened to forgot her folding knife in her handbag while coming back from Tunisia ,it got confiscated, and a guy forgot his gun in his, right in the middle of the terror craze, and the TSA apparently missed it.

But while terrorism is nothing minor, it's nothing uncommon either. It's a bit like if you told me "let's put everyone in bee suit, it's the only way to stop people being killed by bees". While it's technically true, and bee apparently kill 54 peoples in the US each ear, quite messily and painfully, it's still a stupid idea.
We got anti terrorist units, but we don't need to shred our liberties, or even to inconvenience ourselves to thwart the terrorist threat.
PS if I was a terrorist, I simply wouldn't aim for a plane. And If I was a plane obsessed terrorist, I'd simply shoot one down with a makeshift rocket launched from the Airport's premises.

Edit : What could that guys do with his stuns gun anyway. " Give me the control of the plane or I cause you an incapacitating pain for a short period of time" doesn't sound like an efficient threat.

[sluissa]

Bottom Line: I don't know what the answer is or if I'm right, but how do you deal with this stuff in a reasonable fashion?

You treat people with respect and keep your eyes open. Like almost every country out there besides the US. A few have adopted our crazy style, although not nearly to the extremes we've gone (or to the ineptness.) But a lot of them simply have people positioned around and trained to keep their eyes out for activity which is suspicious along with the simple metal detector/xray conveyor line. If they see something, then they pull those people off to the side and politely check them out.

In Europe, I went through a lot of the same stuff I had to deal with here, except the scanners, and guess what? They were all well trained, polite and while a few were a bit overly professional and stern(or possibly just bored), nobody was rude and nobody ever did anything I had to question. I got a quick pat down twice, but it was the simple kind that simply checks pockets and sleeves. Never once, did I feel violated until I got back to the US where every official I ran into treated me like I was already their enemy and that I was one wrong move or one minor discrepancy from landing in Gitmo. In Europe it was please and thank you. In the US it was, in my face, yelling, "TAKE YOUR SHOES OUT OF THE BIN!" Apparently I was supposed to put them directly on the rollers... where the laces could get tangled.

I also never said that the TSA didn't catch anything. They get plenty of stuff. But they never specify what except in a few cases, and almost never the context with those. I severely doubt even 1/4 of that is actual weapons, unless you count swiss army style tools.

[SalmonGod]

We could also stop pissing people off.  That would help a lot.  Overbearing security and military tends to piss people off by making them feel violated and controlled. 

I also don't believe that terrorism is a product of religious extremism to nearly the extent that we're told.  It's a product of many people viewing the U.S. as a force of pure fucking evil, because we have done and continue to do things that are very hard not to interpret as pure fucking evil. 

It's our fault that so many people hate us, and all of our attempts to protect ourselves from well-deserved hatred are only going to continue earning us more hatred.  Our nation is a criminal organization that's unjustly victimized hundreds of millions of people, and can only escape persecution by increasingly criminal means.  There's no other way out of this but vulnerability and sacrifice.  The number of people who would be harmed by a drastic reduction in security and military would be nothing compared to the number of people who are going to be harmed if we keep this shit up.

[Kogan Loloklam]

As for "how many tried to board planes." I really don't know if that's a question that can be answered. I'm certainly the last one to advocate for a police state, but to claim that there's no real problem, really?

Yep.

Fatalities with vehicles.

2001 total: 42,196
2001 just drivers in crashes: 22,914

Terrorism Figures.
2001 deaths from terrorism GLOBALLY: 3547
2001 Additional wounded from terrorism GLOBALLY: 1080
2001 Terrorism impact (dead and wounded): 4627

So every person killed or injured from a terrorist attack that was reported in 2001 equals at most 20% of every US citizen who died driving a vehicle involved in an Automobile accident.
2001 was the worst year recorded for terrorism.

20%.

Apparently TSA needs to be out in front of every automobile instead, since they do such a good job of preventing terrorism.

There should have been no change to the USA due to the September 11th attacks. None of it was positive or a smart use of resources.

[Zangi]

*snip*

There should have been no change to the USA due to the September 11th attacks. None of it was positive or a smart use of resources.

Except you know... you are dealing with sensationalism and fear.  The rational mind was kicked out of the window and forgotten as soon as the first plane hit.

[SalmonGod]

And as pointed out before, it was a completely freak occurrence that 9/11 wasn't prevented.  It wouldn't have happened had dozens of circumstances not converged on unlikelihood.  This is why conspiracy theories and general mistrust of the official story of events still runs so strongly.  It was possibly the biggest screw-up in government history, not because of insufficient policies and protocols, but because so many people just happened to break or ignore them all on the same day.

[Truean]

I'm saying the TSA sucks and is ineffective, they need to be more effective somehow, without trampling on people's rights....

As for the numbers on deaths from terrorism. A.) Depends on how you define it (civilian Iraqis and Afgans? cause that'll boost those numbers up). B.) We want the numbers to be as low as possible.... This is the same argument I've heard companies say about not needing lawyers. "Look at how we haven't been sued." You're welcome. Then they drop the legal department, are promptly sued because no one is watching their backs anymore and.... Vicious cycle. This is an argument to numbers, a logical fallacy. The number of people who've died from it can't be conclusive in this instance. We do need to prevent it, while not being massive jackasses in the process....

Also yes, US foreign policy sucks....

Fear and panic are potent weapons. Acting brave doesn't change this fact. Does anyone here really think the "just don't do it" answer is gonna win anything? It's too simple for a complex problem.

Reform to reasonable.